Saturday, October 28, 2006

I was in Philadelphia at about the same time that Atrios posted something about the insane security situation involving the Liberty Bell. Thanks to some curious relatives I got to experience it first-hand. I have never before taken my belt off to enter a museum, nor have I waited that long to enter (though I'm told it was a good day). Yessir, a real lesson in liberty.

As a chaser, I didn't have to go ogle the constitution, but I did get a taste of the state of it:

If you can make it out, that's a 9/11 exhibit advertised right beside "We the people."

Billmon writes, while dealing with US ignorance of what the hell's up:

Even the British, renowned for the caliber of their imperial civil service, usually operated in stunning ignorance of the people and cultures they ruled over, certainly so in the case of the Arab world. Which is probably why they, too, were so often taken by surprise -- by the Sepoy Mutiny, the Battle of Isandlwana, the Easter Rising, the Iraq revolt, Palestinian resistance to Zionism, the list goes on and on.

The difference, though, is that we live in an age in which it is easier than it ever has been to know things. Billmon's point is that empires tend to ignorance of conquered-therefore-inferior peoples, but when acquiring the rudiments of a subject is so insanely easy I'd expect that informed imperialists would be a dime a dozen.

Sunday, October 8, 2006

But the two men share something important to the past and future of Microsoft: technological brilliance. As the inventor and principal executive behind Lotus Notes in the '80s and '90s, the 50-year-old [Ray] Ozzie is considered one of the best software minds on the planet. In its day, Lotus Notes was among the most popular applications in corporate America. In 1997, Ozzie started Groove Networks, a company – like the one behind Lotus – created to help office workers collaborate electronically. Microsoft bought Groove in April 2005 for $120 million, and Ozzie signed on as a top executive in Redmond.

Okay, I'm using a product that hasn't been under this guy for quite a while, but efforts on Notes appear to involve saving the big shitpile from its bloated clunkiness.

Saturday, October 7, 2006

A second Government minister has entered the debate over Muslim women who veil their faces, with a warning that they risked provoking "fear and resentment" which played into the hands of the far right.

Aren't you doing the far right's bidding by stating this? Don't get me wrong: I'm as intolerant of religion, specific ones even, as the next lout. Still, what people choose to wear, assuming they're choosing, is not the government's business.